Make Wisdom Attractive to Your Children (Proverbs 4:1-9)

“Ask yourself, Do I respond to my [child] in ways that make wisdom appealing?  Do I make the taste of correction sweet?  I watch parents make correction bitter as they beat their children with demeaning words.  Make wisdom attractive.  Make correction something to be desired.

Win your children for wisdom.  Be a salesman for it.  You don’t do this with nasty, inflammatory confrontations and ugly verbal power struggles.  No wisdom is imparted in these moments.  If you hit your kids with a barrage of verbal bullets, they will either run for the bunker or come out firing themselves. . . . Remember, giving wisdom is not hitting your [child] over the head with words.  It is putting a lovely garland around his neck.”  (Paul Tripp, Age of Opportunity, 77-78)